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Every second Saturday of the month, 4 pm - Divine Liturgy in English of Sunday - Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family, Duke Street, London W1K 5BQ. Followed by refreshments.Next Liturgy: Saturday 10th February - 3pm Great Vespers, 4pm Divine Liturgy for Meatfare Sunday (Sunday of God's Fearful Judgment)

To purchase The Divine Liturgy: an Anthology for Worship (in English), order from the Sheptytsky Institute here, or the St Basil's Bookstore here.

To purchase the Divine Praises, the Divine Office of the Byzantine-Slav rite (in English), order from the Eparchy of Parma here.

The new catechism in English, Christ our Pascha, is available from the Eparchy of the Holy Family and the Society. Please email johnchrysostom@btinternet.com for details.

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Worshippers attend a mass at the Syriac Orthodox Church in Al-Darbasiyah, Hasakah province on Nov. 13, 2013. Due to the clashes in north-eastern Syria, many Christians have fled the area seeking safety elsewhere, activists say.

The Lebanese Forces Party (LFP) has called on the United Nations to help protect holy places, archaeological sites, priests and nuns in Syria following recent attacks.
There were also calls stressing the need for the UN Security Council to convene and put the ancient Christian town of Maloula and other Muslim and Christian archaeological areas in Syria under its direct protection to prevent violations against them.

Muslim militants stormed the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Takla in Syria Monday afternoon after seizing the historical Christian town of Maloula. They forcibly took away 12 nuns. The reason for the kidnapping is not yet known.

MP Fadi Karam, a member of the Lebanese Forces Bloc, denounced the kidnapping noting that they have called on the Syrian regime and all disputing parties in Syria to put Maloula under the supervision of the United Nations and spare it the armed conflict.
For his part, Father Nicola Daoud from the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Tripoli and Koura said in remarks to the Lebanese Now website that 11 nuns and the head of the convent, Mother Pelagia, were kidnapped. The abductees are Syrian and Lebanese citizens.
He expressed concern that they may face the same fate of the two abducted bishops Bolous Yazigi and Youhanna Ibrahim, who were kidnapped April 22 and have not been returned.

Intellectual and political campaign against the exodus of Christians
Baghdad (Agenzia Fides) –Non-stop interventions on behalf of intellectuals, journalists and Iraqi politicians mostly of Muslim faith have been launched on the www.ankawa.com website as a contribution to counteract the haemorrhage of Christians fleeing from the ancient Churches present in Iraq. The campaign, as well as providing an opportunity for in-depth historical and sociological phenomenon of the exodus, also gives way to the characters involved to offer concrete solutions on how to address and curb the phenomenon. "Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq", says Nuri al-Hamdan, Christians were more than a million, but now there are about 300 thousand". According to one of the speakers, Professor Mahdi al-Jaber al Mahdi, "what is happening to Christians today is a wake-up call for all those who care about the prosperity of the Country". While the Shiite politician leader Ahmed Chalabi hopes that the next government puts the return of Iraqi Christians who have emigrated abroad as a priority on its agenda. On his behalf, Sheikh Abdul Hussein al-Saadi suggests that the Holy See should intervene in order to urge Christians not to leave their Homeland. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 4/12/2013)

Pray for the Unity of the Apostolic Churches

The Society of St John Chrysostom promotes greater appreciation of the spiritual, theological and liturgical traditions of Eastern Christendom, works and prays for the unity of the Churches of East and West, and encourages support for the Eastern Churches :

- the Byzantine and Oriental Catholic Churches in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome (especially in their contemporary calling to promote reconciliation and the recovery of union between Catholics and Orthodox)- the Orthodox Church- the Oriental Orthodox Churches and- the Church of the East.

In the United Kingdom and Europe the Society, founded in 1926, is a group of Catholics of the Latin and Eastern Churches, along with our friends in other traditions, promoting awareness and friendship in the Christian West for our fellow Christians of the East - through prayer and liturgy, conferences and lectures, pilgrimage and ecumenical encounters.